"Durasurf" metal treatment process

[cgarb]

Maybe it was the Orange County's first attempt at a custom "tribute bike"....we painted a custom emblem on the catalog bought gas tank and tack welded fancy cnc plasma cut out logos on the frame rail and chromed them...awesome.

[Mark O'Neal]

Probably not applicable, but I remember reading about guys clamping engine parts like heads, cranks, blocks and such to a great big adjustable vibrating table and "shaking" hell out of them to stress relieve them. They would tune the vibration frequencies to do this....

Just food for thought.

pdq67

That was the MetalAx table. I never figured out why they just didn't put them on the washing machine.

I remember when Childs & Albert bought one. Made for great storage for anything they were too lazy to put away.

[MadBill]

For those looking either for more insight re the Met-Lax process (including words from Lockheed and the University of California) or for confirmation of their "Voodoo!" assessment:
http://www.meta-lax.com/Home/Technology/technology.html
http://www.bonal.com/about/history.html

[seattle smitty]

I wonder why Childs & Albert didn't like their shaker table. Joe Mondello certainly was impressed with his:

http://www.mondello.com/page23.html


Thanks for the links. The pulsed-puddle arc welding is interesting. Sounds similar to a product called TIP TIG, which uses the wire to "stir up" the pulle as it goes. It would seem to beat manual peening, but the expense of this high tech gear would seem hard to justify for any but a big -time professional racing operation. Shot peening, cryo, and shaker treatment services are already steep (but so are broken parts).

[David Redszus]

Many years ago, we were involved with professional go-kart racing. The kart chassis tubes were welded but not stress relieved. After half a season of racing the kart frames took on a decidedly different shape than they were when new.
The vibrations produced on the race track served to relax the weld stresses and change the shape.

Some kart mfgs made use of shaker tables to stress relieve the kart tubes, (and then straighten them) before final assembly. Those stress relieved chassis would run for several years without getting out of shape.

There are white papers that question just how smooth a finish will produce the lowest friction. There is some optimum surface finish that reduces lubricated friction the most. Damned if I can find the tech papers when I need them.

[Kevin Johnson]

...
There are white papers that question just how smooth a finish will produce the lowest friction. There is some optimum surface finish that reduces lubricated friction the most. Damned if I can find the tech papers when I need them.

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